OnLive Snubbed in Sprint’s HTC Evo View Reveal

If HTC’s Evo View 4G tablet can play modern PC games from OnLive, Sprint isn’t saying so.

OnLive was supposed to be a big feature in the HTC Flyer, the 7-inch Android tablet that Sprint is calling the Evo View 4G. The cloud gaming service gets top billing on HTC’s Flyer website, and promises to let users play PC games like Homefront and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood on their tablets.

But Sprint’s announcement of the Evo View 4G doesn’t mention OnLive, even as it promises other built-in entertainment apps such as Blockbuster On Demand and NASCAR Sprint Cup.

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China Denies Google Claims of Beijing Gmail Frame-Up

The tension’s definitely ratcheting up as Google and China trade accusations and denials over who’s responsible for weeks of sluggish Gmail service.

Google recently claimed no foul and blamed China for turning the country’s version of Gmail into a slideshow. The company then took it one further, suggesting the slowdown was “a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail” (though Google didn’t offer technical evidence to illustrate the problem).

As the slowdown continues to morph into an “all but” shutdown, it’s China’s turn to deny. Beijing officially rejected Google’s claims yesterday, its Foreign Ministry spokesperson calling the accusations “unacceptable” at a routine news conference, though that’s all she said.

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Samsung’s New Galaxy Tabs: The iPad 2 Gets Well-Priced Competition

Greetings from the CTIA Wireless show in Orlando, where Samsung just announced two new Galaxy Tab tablets running Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb. The new version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has a 10.1″ display at 1280 by 800, a 1-GHz dual-core CPU, dual-antenna Wi-Fi, a 3-megapixel camera in the back and a 2-megapixel one up front. And at 8.6mm and 595 grams, it’s slightly thinner and slightly lighter than the surprisingly thin and light iPad 2. The Galaxy Tab 8.9 is a similar tablet with a screen that’s a bit smaller than the one on the iPad 2 rather than a bit larger.

Both Tabs will run a custom version of Honeycomb topped off with a new tablet-specific edition of Samsung’s TouchWiz interface and a bunch of Samsung services–and as usual with modified versions of Android, I wanna try it in person before I come to any conclusions about whether it makes the experience better or worse.

The most interesting thing about these new Tabs aren’t the specs–which look like what you might expect from a thoroughly modern Android-based tablet–but the pricing. The 10.1 will be available in a 16GB version for $499 and a 32GB one for $599 and will be available on June 8th; the 8.9″ will cost $469 for 16GB and $569 for 32GB and will arrive in “early summer.” Assuming no price cuts from Apple in the interim, the Tabs will provide the iPad 2 with real competition at similar price points for the first time. It’ll be fascinating to see how an Android tablet competes when the discussion is all about software, services, hardware, and the integration thereof, rather than about pricetags.

Wi-Fi Alliance To Certify Hotspots

How many hotspots do you use on a regular or semi-regular basis? At this point in my wanderings I’ve amassed so many Wi-Fi hotspot log-ins that I don’t really remember them all–to the point where I try to create new accounts for services that I already have patronized. And when I’m in an area with multiple hotspots, I’m not always sure which one I want to hop on. Is one going to cost me more than another?

Hang in there–the Wi-Fi Alliance is working on a cure for hotspot overload. Sometime in the first half of next year, if the current timetable stands, the Alliance–the trade group that certifies Wi-Fi networking gear from different vendors for interoperability–will start certifying hotspots, along with the devices that access them.

Among the benefits of the program for consumers will be streamlined network discovery, account setup and login: Your device will automatically figure out which hotspots you already have accounts with and log you in based on your preferences. Certification will also require use of the strongest available Wi-Fi encryption, WPA2.

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T-Mobile Launching 42Mbps Service in Three Markets

What merger? T-Mobile is doing exactly what it promised — moving on regardless of Sunday’s merger news. Data junkies will salivate at this one: the carrier has announced the first cities to get its 42Mbps network upgrade.

Now do you understand why AT&T wanted the carrier so much?

New York City, Las Vegas, and Orlando would be the first cities to see the high-speed service. Chicago will follow soon after along with the Long Island, NY and northern New Jersey. These speed boosts would “theoretically” double maximum speeds in these areas, and it expects by mid year to have increased speeds in about 25 markets covering some 140 million people.

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Verizon Wireless Doesn’t Want Sprint

So is Verizon going to react to AT&T’s T-Mobile bid by snapping up Sprint? Apparently not.

Tear Down That Paywall!

The New York Times is currently testing its permeable paywall in Canada. And a Canadian coder figured out how to defeat it with four lines of JavaScript. (The Times apparently downloads stories to your browser, and then tells you you’re not entitled to read them.)

What’s Next for TiVo: Hulu, Streaming, Extenders

While we generally shy away from rumor and speculation, TiVo’s been pretty quiet as they approach the one year anniversary of Premiere retail availability. Given our site heritage and interests, the lack of news out of Alviso can be frustrating. So we’ve whipped up a post based purely on hearsay, but one that hopefully gives some indication what TiVo is quietly working on.

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Sprint Just Couldn’t Afford T-Mobile

Bloomberg’s Serena Saitto and Jeffrey McCracken give the lowdown on the AT&T and T-Mobile deal: Sprint was a player — along with 3 (!) other parties other than AT&T — but just couldn’t afford what Deutsche Telekom wanted. Apparently, the breakup fee is what sealed the deal.

More Patent Madness: Microsoft is Suing Barnes & Noble

More news in the never-ending saga of technology companies suing each other over patents: Microsoft is suing Barnes & Noble and its manfuacturing partners Foxconn and Inventec, saying that the bookseller’s Android-based Nook and Nookcolor e-readers violate Microsoft software patents dating back to the 1990s. The move isn’t a shocker given that Microsoft had already sued Motorola over Android phones and struck licensing agreements with HTC (for Android phones) and Amazon.com (for the not-based-on-Android Kindle e-reader).

The license fee that Microsoft says it expects makers of Android devices to pay it would make it the only company to collect a royalty on every Android-based gadget sold. (Google gives away the software.)

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Facebook Testing Checkins for Events

Facebook is apparently set to expand what its users can check in to, testing out a new “check in” button for events that’s available to users of its iPhone/iPod Touch mobile website, according to AllFacebook.com. While the button is not visible to those using the app just yet, those visiting the Safari version should see it.

The social networking site hasn’t provided too much information other than that the functionality is in testing and that the company plans to include it in the next release of the iPhone app. It is not clear whether or not the button would also be included in the Android app as well, but I am betting it will.

Checking in has become a much more popular activity on Facebook, as the company steals more and more of Foursquare’s thunder In fact, there really isn’t much that Foursquare does when it comes to checking in that Facebook hasn’t added itself.

By adding the functionality to events, Facebook could help those promoting these events better gauge how well their promotions on Facebook work. We all know folks who mark themselves as “attending” but never show up. (Hey, it happened to me this weekend. )

Chrome’s New Icon: Simpler, Homelier

Big news from logoland: Google has simplified Chrome’s icon. It no longer looks quite as much like Simon, but still has the world’s most popular color scheme.

“Redesigning the icon was very much a group effort,” says a post on the Chrome blog, and to my eye, that’s obvious: It looks like it was designed by a committee. Which is true to Google’s personality, I guess–but I prefer the Susan Kare approach.

Google Blames China for Slowing Down Gmail

The concept of “free internet” never really takes hold until the very first moment you sit down at a Chinese computer and type in “Facebook.com.” Here in China, it’s blocked. And even though tech giant Google pulled out of mainland China over a year ago, it’s only been harder to access Google’s services recently.

One of the most noticeable effects of China’s Great Firewall as of late has been Gmail’s increased inaccessibility. The slowdown has been reportedly going on for weeks, since early March. A source in Beijing reports that Gmail has been “…slower definitely. By far. Sometimes we’ve been unable to connect, and many times unable to use Gchat.”

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Google and Sprint Buddy Up on Nexus S, Google Voice

The Googlephone. It’s a concept that sometimes sounds an exciting taste of the future, and sometimes sounds like it’s already fizzled. And today, it’s back to being exciting: Google has announced that there will be a Sprint 4G version of its fine Nexus S phone–and that it will give consumers all the goodness of Google voice without making them switch their phone numbers. That’ll make it the first true native Google Voice phone.

The news would be noteworthy whenever it came down, but the timing is fascinating. It came down hours after AT&T agreed to acquire T-Mobile–there latter being the carrier that partnered with Google for the Nexus One and original Nexus S, and the only national carrier other than Sprint that counts as a scrappy underdog. Sprint needs good news; Google needs a wireless partner that isn’t T-Mobile and that doesn’t insist on acting like an 800-pound gorilla. Short of Google buying a phone carrier, there are all kinds of interesting things it could do with Sprint if the two companies agreed to let Google take the sort of dominant role that Apple took with the iPhone but which otherwise just doesn’t happen.

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What’s the Fair Price for an Online Newspaper?

Frédéric Filloux at Monday Note:

The New York Times paywall is like the French tax system: expensive, utterly complicated, disconnected from the reality and designed to be bypassed.

An Ex-Regulator Dissects the AT&T-Mobile News

Bruce Gottlieb–until recently an advisor to the chairman of the FCC–has some smart analysis on the implications of AT&T’s plan to buy T-Mobile US over at The Atlantic.